7 Tips for Making Your Brand More "Likeable" on Social Media

Farid Gasim

May 4, 2017

According to Wordstream, over 50 million businesses use Facebook Business Pages with 2 million of them using Facebook for advertising in the US (2016). Instagram, on the other hand, earns $595 million in mobile ad revenue per year.

These stats just show the huge potential of social media marketing and its impact on increasing sales. Most marketers just lack understanding on how to achieve positive results. Social media helps build brand awareness and engage their audience outside of their company website.

Data shows that more than 56% of online adults using more than one social media platform. Thus, the competition to gain the attention of the audience is hard. According to Social Media Examiner’s 2016 Industry Report, “40% of marketers say social media marketing has gotten more difficult for them in the last 12 months.”

Despite the tough competition for attention, a huge audience pool is there just waiting to be wowed. Studies suggest that 59% of Americans with social media accounts think that customer service through social media has made it easier to get questions answered and issues resolved. People will follow your brand when they “like” what you offer. These may come in the form of discounts and special promotions, entertaining content, or customer service.

Improve Brand Likeability

Below are 7 tips to stand out from the competition that will affect how others view your business. From adding some value to encouraging discussions, everything is relevant in your digital marketing strategy:

1. Provide Some Value

Show your audience some value through a mix of quality content. Make sure you share valuable content to your audience –some relevant and helpful pieces. People learn at faster through visual points. So including visual content can boost your audience engagement on social media.

Producing content with practical value is one of the easiest ways for your target market to perceive your brand as a thought leader in your industry. It’s like pushing a psychological button on your target market to share the content.

2. Don’t Sell Too Much

Traditional sales talk and marketing have no place in social media. Apart from a relatively small percentage, people (as opposed to brands,) typically use social media to read information and interact with their friends. Who you are, what you stand for, and what you can offer are the three main things your audience wants to know. All these go beyond your products and services.

People will follow you on social media because you are a thought leader. They will like and share your content because of the value you now bring to their lives. Promotional content shouldn’t sound too ‘salesy’ as this is considered as pushy within the Social Media realm. Most people like to have time to think and process before buying.

3. Nurture Discussions

Don’t just give out information and just wait for your readers to react. Communicate with your audience. Social media is a two-way street. You need to create a conversation. You need to give people some space to share their thoughts and experiences with one another. Ask some engaging questions, get the conversation going and go deep into their thoughts. When you share news, ask them for thoughts on recent developments. When sharing a new product, ask for their feedback.

Whether it’s ego boosting, information gathering, triggering emotion or both – you can always find ways to put the spotlight on the members. You can do this through interviews, photo sharing and more. The ideas is to get them talking.

4. Keep it real

If you want to grow your page and engage your target audience, you need to be true to your brand’s voice. It’s important to show your audience who you are, not just what you sell.

Bring some human element and personality to your pages. Lose those technical terms and sales pitches. Think about what might encourage people to engage. Develop and maintain a brand voice. Ask questions! Your aim is to know how your audience feels and use that emotion to generate some form of ROI for your business. Show people that you are dedicated to them.

5. Handle Negative Feedback

Social media can also be a place where the audience wants to air their grievances. Think of negative feedback as an opportunity to show that you know how to take care of your customers. It’s a good chance to show humility and understanding.

One of the first things you should do is to establish a process for handling feedback. Your chief goal is to address the problem that caused the complaint, instead of the complaint itself.

Address the problem that caused a bad review, instead of the complaint itselfClick To Tweet.

6. Tell Your Story

Let your followers take a deeper look at your values and what you offer. How might you tell a story? You can share inspiring videos, articles and quotes that showcase what you offer.

Through social media, you reveal your brand to your audience. You share a part of your brand or company that your audience doesn’t know. You create meaningful interactions and be smart in engaging with them at the same time.

7. Manage your audience

Investing in social media management is a way to drive your goals and increase brand awareness or engagement. Social media community management helps you nurture your audience to grow a stronger, larger and more engaged following.

You can take advantage of unique conversations and engagements happening across your social pages. For example, you can use information you extracted from a Twitter poll and post it as an Infographic on Facebook or Instagram. You can create additional discussion and engagement, and also lets you follow and engage with them on various platforms.

Conclusion

Gaining the attention of your customers will take time, effort, and creativity above all. It’s all about forming a connection with your audience. These tips above are just the beginning.

If you can find a way to practice all these tips, you will see that customers will flock to your business by themselves. Just remember to remain consistent in your ways and the rest will follow.

A community is built slowly over time. Aim to be authentic and then try to engage with your audience through sharing valuable content.

Comments Welcome!

If you have any hints you’d like to add, I’m sure the Curatti community will be as happy as I will. So please share.

Farid Gasim is Founder of Edarabia.com and has extensive experience in serving the Middle East education industry. As an integral part of media agency, Grafdom, Farid has developed marketing strategies for institutions of all sizes. He is a notable speaker with over 12 years of marketing expertise and numerous public engagements at New York University, Zayed University, Higher Colleges of Technology and other industry events & forums.